Within the tire art, a great deal of effort and talent have been expended in creating so-called safety tires, i.e. tires which will seal themselves upon being punctured, or which have more than one air-chamber. As to the self-sealing variety, attempts have been directed at providing a tire which, when pierced, envelops the piercing objects and prevents air loss or actually plugs the puncture when the piercing object is removed or falls out.
Alternatively, tire structures have been proposed wherein multiple air-chambers are provided.- This latter field is the one to which the present invention is directed. One multiple-chamber approach may be seen, for example, in the following patents:
______________________________________ Siedow U.S. Pat. No. 3,318,325 (1967) Krohn et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,361,153 (1968) Huber U.S. Pat. No. 3,480,064 (1969) Hawkes U.S. Pat. No. 3,422,836 (1969) Huber et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,476,168 (1969) Holl U.S. Pat. No. 3,542,110 (1970) Betancourt U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,325 (1974) Bezbatchenko et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,750 (1975) Abbott et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,764 (1993) ______________________________________
It will be noted that all of the above prior art patents are directed to concentric structures, with one chamber located radially outwardly of the other. One difficulty encountered in these radial arrangements is that, when the outer chamber is punctured and collapses, the puncturing object can, upon continued rotation of the tire, abrade the wall separating the inner and outer chambers, causing the inner chamber to collapse as well. Further, when the radially outer chamber loses its inflation pressure and collapses, the attitude of the vehicle and the weight distribution will change, since the rolling diameter of that particular wheel will now be reduced. This may likely cause a loss of vehicle control and stability.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a combination dual-chamber safety tire and rim which is able to continue carrying its vehicle load and maintain stability and control, even though one chamber may have been compromised by a puncture. It is a further object to provide a tire and rim combination wherein dual tire chambers are arranged side-by-side on a rim in such a manner that vehicle attitude will be maintained though air pressure is lost in one chamber. The above and additional objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following "Summary of the Invention" and "Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment."